by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
Six boys produce a lot of destruction around my house. Everywhere I look, there are nicks in bookshelves and unintended holes in the walls from errant hands or fingers or just curiosity, and there are cracked toilet lids and picture frames that have no more glass and shattered lights that took an accidental knocking.
But the destruction, by far, hits toys the hardest. Mostly because toys are made of paper. Or something similar. They’re surely not made of anything durable, like steel. Or iron. Or cement.
I know, I know. If we had toys made of steel or iron or cement, we’d have bigger things to worry about, and besides, boys wouldn’t even be able to lift them, which might be my point.
I have no idea what goes through the minds of toy manufacturers when they’re building these complicated little things intended for boy play. I imagine it’s something like this: “Haha! Finally! Here is something they’ll never be able to destroy.”
The answer is always False.
My boys get pretty wild and rowdy when they’re playing, but, from what I’ve observed, it’s not any more wild and rowdy than their friends, including some girls. Kids play hard. It’s their favorite thing to do, and that means that many times, the toys they choose to play with consistently are usually always on their last life. Or maybe they never really had a life in the first place, because as soon as they came home and saw the boys, they gave up (remember the scene in Toy Story 4 when Woody and Buzz and Jessie watch the kids at daycare play with the old toys and you can just tell they’re terrified to be brought into the room? That’s what I imagine any toys coming into our house feel like, if they have feelings.).
So I’m just putting it out there, toy manufacturers: If you want to test whether or not your product is really durable—and I’m talking nothing-is-going-to-destroy-this durable—send it to my house.
Here are some things we’ve already tried and successfully destroyed:
1. Anything made of foam.
Once upon a time, my second son got a Thor foam hammer for his birthday. It was the coolest thing, if you talked to him. Two days later, it was about half its original size, with tiny little bite marks all over it, because his little brother thought it looked like a good thing to eat. THIS IS THE ONLY THING FOAM IS GOOD FOR.
Trust me. We made light sabers out of pool noodles this summer, because we thought our boys would really enjoy some safe sword play, except it’s hard to sword fight when you’re focused on how many bite marks your opponent’s light saber has. They kept slashing me in the face, because I couldn’t stop staring, marveling at how quickly those cool light sabers had deteriorated.
You know those foam protectors they put on the metal bars of trampolines so kids don’t get hurt while they’re jumping? Yeah, my little foamivores got those, too. Maybe they’ll learn their lesson next time a body part connects with a metal pole. But I doubt it. They’d probably think it was fun and try to do it again.
2. Anything made with a thousand pieces that don’t keep their pieces.
This would be things like LEGOs that get opened immediately, without any plan, and dumped out. It was a sad awakening when I realized no one really cares about putting together that awesome Star Wars starship as much as I do. This category also hosts things like puzzles, which are all packaged in a bag kids can’t open and neither can parents—so when it is finally, finally, finally wrestled open, the pieces go flying everywhere, and at least one of them is sure to disappear. Forever.
(I think toy manufacturers do this on purpose. Someone somewhere is laughing every time a parent sweats through trying to open something and a billion pieces fly everywhere. You know who’s not laughing? Me. Thanks for another anxiety attack, toy manufacturers. My kid just tossed a puzzle into my lap and asked me to open it.)
3. Mr. Potato Head’s butt.
This was just lazy designing, in my opinion. I get why it’s there—easy storage for all the pieces that make Mr. Potato Head Mr. Potato Head, but it’s just that Mr. Potato Head, at least in my house, has a very leaky butt, because every other minute my kids are asking me to put Mr. Potato Head’s butt back on, except we don’t allow the word “butt” in our house, so it sounds more like, “Can you put Mr. Potato Head’s booty back on?” which is really kind of ridiculous and a little bit cute.
I’ll put it back on, and then I’ll watch them fill it up with pieces and close it and then open it again, and, whoops, there went the butt flap again and all the pieces are spilling out and my kid is throwing Mr. Potato Head across the room, because it’s so frustrating. I know, kids. It’s frustrating when you have a leaky butt on your hands. Especially when it’s not your own.
4. Action figures.
These guys. I feel sorry for them. They lose limbs like we lose matching shoes. I’ve found Captain America with only one arm, but “at least he still has his shield,” the boys say. I’ve found Hulk without a head, which would be a very dangerous Hulk, if you ask me. I’ve found Iron Man missing a leg, but “at least he can still fly.”
All I know is I’m hoping they won’t come back to avenge their missing limbs, because I have no idea where they are.
5. Games.
Now, I love playing Apples to Apples and Ticket to Ride and Dominion just like any other parent, and even, when it comes to kids’ games, Battleship and Candy Land and Operation. It’s just that even though these games are super fun and most of my boys are old enough to play them, they come with two thousand tiny pieces. And they’re packaged in boxes.
This alone is a recipe for disaster, but put together, it’s a recipe for we’ll-never-play-this-again. The boys try to cram on the box lid, even though the Battleship board is still halfway open, and the box tears in half, and then the pieces are everywhere, and we have to break out the Duct tape, and even still, pieces go missing. Ever tried to play Operation without the liver and the heart and the funny bone? It’s not as much fun. What’s even worse, though, is when parents don’t replace the batteries (they never do—but that’s an essay for another day).
6. Anything that’s super cool.
The 8-year-old once got a microscope for his birthday, because he was really into science (and still is), but it lasted all of three days, because he left it out on the table once and one of his twin brothers decided to see what would happen if he squeezed the tiny little light bulb. Easy enough to fix, except that when he crushed it with his tiny little hands, he also bent a piece that wouldn’t permit any other light bulb to be screwed in. (Fun fact: How many people did it take to screw in a light bulb? About twelve, until Husband looked at it and called it what it was: destroyed.)
The 6-year-old once got a really cool bug catcher that broke the first time a fly got caught. (I know. That wasn’t his fault.) Another boy once got a frogosphere where you can raise your own frogs, and we didn’t even try that one, because we’re talking about live animals. After what these boys do to toys? No thanks. You just dodged a bullet, baby frogs.
7. Scooters.
It’s amazing how difficult it is to align the handlebars with the wheels on a scooter when you’re putting it together and how amazingly easy it is to mangle this contraption beneath the tires of a minivan when boys forget to put it back where it belongs.
8. Stuffies.
If the 3-year-olds are left alone with a stuffed animal for any amount of time, they will defluff it, which is about as terrible as it sounds. Every now and then they sneak a little stuffy past my eyes and hide it under their pillow until I take a bathroom break from my post right outside their room, which is where I have to stay if there’s any chance that they will take a nap, and when I come back, I find miniature throw carpets that have dog heads and lion heads and pink elephant heads with sparkly purple eyes.
In fact, this has happened so often recently I’m considering starting a business selling slippers made from old, defluffed stuffed animals. Because those little throw rugs look suspiciously like the material used for kids slippers. Might as well make a profit off my boys’ destruction.
All I’m really trying to say, toy manufacturers, is that you’re going to have to do better than this. Let’s see you make something cool that will not be taken apart in ten seconds and put back together all wrong, or maybe, worse, better than before. Let’s see you make something that can withstand cross-purpose playing (like puppet sticks that are actually durable enough to be used as swords—which will happen in a house of boys). Let’s see you make something kids can’t destroy.
I know it’s a daunting task, but judging by the price of that action hero castle they got for Christmas last year that was destroyed two hours later, I’m paying you about twenty-five dollars an hour. You can do this. I know you can.
Plus, my boy just put a cool Star Wars light saber on his birthday wish list, and I still remember what happened to the last one. No one wants to see an 8-year-old on a war path to figure out who broke his favorite toy. Trust me.
This is an excerpt from Parenting is the Hardest Insane Asylum Ever, the first in the Crash Test Parents humor series. It pre-releases Jan. 24. To be notified of its release, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page, where you’ll also get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
We’re finally all packed up, and everyone is buckled and already said their piece about how strange it is that Mama’s driving this time (because I never choose to), and Daddy has his laptop open, ready to work. We’re going to get moving, after two hours of trying.
That’s right. It takes two hours just to leave the house.
And then.
Then I turn on the car. The gas light, indicating a gas tank on fumes, is on.
Son of a—
I know what this means. A stop. A stop that will likely turn into a potty break that will turn into five potty breaks (because everyone forgot to go before we left) that will turn into thirty minutes (or more!) of wasted time.
It’s only a three-hour trip. It will take us five (not counting the two-hour departure time).
When we stop, after I’ve huffed and puffed about how someone should fill up the car once in a while and why can’t whoever was driving it last just fill it up before the gas light comes on (pretty sure it was me, that day I was running late to get dinner started and the three older boys had just effectively made me lose my mind fighting over two computers in the public library, so I didn’t want to stay in the car with them one second longer), I tell them we are NOT getting out to potty, because this is not a scheduled potty break. This is an inconvenient, necessary stop.
Scheduled potty breaks happen when the baby needs to eat.
“But I really need to go!” the 8-year-old says. It’s been a whopping three minutes since we left.
“Did you go before you left, like I told you?” I say.
“I didn’t have to go then,” he says.
Welp, you don’t have to go now, either.
There are so many kids. It’s like a field trip traveling with all these boys. When one needs to potty, they all do. When one falls asleep, the others don’t. They just get louder.
Every two minutes a different one asks, “Are we almost there?”
We’re not even out of the neighborhood yet.
At first we answered no. Then we answered yes. Then we tried to ignore it. Then we told them to stop asking. Then we told them the truth.
“Two more hours.”
“One hour and fifty-eight minutes.”
“One hour and fifty-six minutes.”
Then we turned it into math practice.
“One hour and fifty-four minutes. How many minutes have passed since you last asked?”
“One hour and fifty-two minutes. Do you notice a pattern between your questions?”
(This plan backfired, because they actually adore math.)
In the end, this is the question that will break us. It’s the one that will make Husband and me look at each other with those crazy eyes and silently mouth, “Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER again,” so the kids can’t hear our declaration and have a meltdown in the middle of our meltdown (the car would explode if too many meltdowns happen at the same time. It’s a law of physics.).
I took some traveling notes on things I wanted to make sure I’d remember next time I think it would be a good idea to pack six boys into the van and travel more than the five miles to the grocery store:
1. Bring some oversized cups.
It’s never too early for boys to learn the art of peeing in cups. When our 3-year-old twins are playing free at home, they will go hours without having to visit the restroom. When they’re in the car, their bladders shrink to about the size of a peanut. They need to pee every half hour. So make it a game: They have to pee in a cup without unbuckling.
On second thought, you’ll probably be the loser in the end, so let’s just forget I mentioned it.
2. Bring treats for every mile you go without hearing, “Are we almost there?”
This question (and its twin: “How much longer until we get there?”) will drive you absolutely crazy, because when you have multiple children, they each take turns asking, as if the answer you gave their brother wasn’t good enough for them. As if their asking might suddenly create a time warp we can speed through that crosses fifty miles in one minute (Every parent wishes this time warp were Real Life instead of Science Fiction.). As if something has changed in one hundred twenty seconds.
One kid might ask it two thousand times. Six kids ask it 13 billion times. So reward them for keeping their mouths shut.
3. Don’t bother putting shoes on the 3-year-olds.
They take them off as soon as they get in the car anyway, and they’ll get buried under all the jackets that get left in the car because no one needs jackets during a Texas winter. Some of them will get shuffled under seats. One will probably fall out the door and you won’t notice (true story). You’ll waste way too much time (and remember: minutes are precious when traveling with kids) looking for shoes, especially when one has gone missing because it was left in the last town. So don’t bother.
4. Bring audio books. They’re more for you than for the kids.
They’re so the next time they ask, “Are we almost there?” you can say, “I’m trying to listen to the story.” They’re so when they say they need to go to the potty again you can say, “Let’s wait until this story is over (they don’t have to know that will be another hour). They’re so when they’re rocking the back of the car because they want to move it faster, you can retreat into your own world and try to ignore the way the van is not moving any faster—probably slower, because everything is slower with children when children try to help.
5. DON’T INTRODUCE I SPY. OR KNOCK KNOCK JOKES.
Notice this one is in caps. There’s a good reason for that. Three thousand rounds of I Spy. Five hundred knock knock jokes. Do you remember? Of course you do. Your eye is still twitching.
The “Are we almost there” question is nothing compared to this. So just close your mouth and keep your eyes on the road.
6. Use a better reservation system than Husband.
“Shoot,” Husband says when we’re turning into our destination. The sky fell dark hours ago, the kids are tired and I’m feeling especially grumpy, because I had to drive.
“What?” I say.
“Never mind,” he says. But I know. There’s something. We’ve been married too long for him to hide anything from me.
“What?” I say again. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
“Well, I can’t remember which condo is ours.”
At this point nothing could really surprise me. I don’t even blow up or rant about how could you not write it down and do I have to do everything and how about we just turn around and go back home. I’m too tired for all that. So I simply put my head down on the steering wheel and let loose a long, long sigh.
“They left the key under the mat,” he says, looking at the row of fifty condos.
“Have fun looking,” I say.
He gets out, checks enough doormats to make it halfway down the line of condos, then returns to the car.
At the last minute he remembered. It was the first condo we passed through the gate.
We all pile into the 500-square-foot condo that looked bigger in the online pictures and collapse on our bed.
Nothing like traveling together to ensure a good nights’ sleep.
This is an excerpt from Parenting is the Hardest Insane Asylum Ever, the first in the Crash Test Parents humor series. It pre-releases Jan. 24. To be notified of its release, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page, where you’ll also get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides.
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test featured, Crash Test Parents, General Blog
It happened on date night, the first night out my husband and I had since having our new baby twelve days before. We’d just finished our dinner and decided to stop by the store to pick up a few baby necessities, since our son was sleeping soundly in a car seat (which we were pushing in our cart, for those of you who are concerned. We’re not completely incompetent parents) and the other five were at home (hopefully) asleep with a sitter.
We were almost through the checkout line when an older woman rolled into line. Her grandbaby, chattering in an unknown baby language, sat in the basket. Her husband stood behind her.
And because I’d just pulled up the car seat cover to check on my little one, she noticed him and said, “Oh my goodness! You have a brand new baby!”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said politely as my husband stood paying. I turned to put the bags in the cart.
That’s when her husband said, “Oh, looks like she’s got another one on the way!” all excited and proud of himself for noticing.
And I swear we heard that woman say, “Uh-oh,” while my husband and I tried to hold it together. We made it all the way to the exit doors before we burst out laughing. We laughed all the way home.
The next day, thirteen days postpartum, we stopped to get an oil change at this place my husband always goes, where you can just sit in the car while they do a quick change. No kids need to be unbuckled or entertained or chased away from the parking lot. It’s the best idea ever. There should be more places like this.
The attendant knew my husband, but I’d never met him before. Still, when we were leaving, he assumed familiarity, calling, “See you soon, man,” to my husband and then flippantly remarking, “Not you, I guess. I’ll see you after.”
My husband quickly rolled up the window, and I tried not to laugh while in clear view, until my husband said what I was thinking. “After what?”
Some men are just clueless.
But lest we go easy on females and just chalk it up to men not knowing any better, I must tell you the story of a woman we met at a park one week after I gave birth to twins.
Our twins were born six weeks early, so we had to leave them in neonatal intensive care for a while, but because our other boys weren’t allowed in the NICU unit and one of their birthdays was coming up, we decided one day to take them to the park. They were playing like children do, making friends with another little boy, and his mother ambled over. We got to talking about how I only have boys, and it wasn’t long before she gestured toward my postpartum belly and said, “Is this one a girl?”
“Oh, no,” I said, laughing, because I knew this was about to get awkward, and I really didn’t blame her. My uterus had a lot of shrinking to do after twins. So I kept it nice and gentle. “No, I just had twin boys six days ago. They’re in the NICU right now.”
She nodded and said, “Oh,” like she understood, but clearly she didn’t, because her next words were, “So when are they due?”
I had to explain it all over again, and she apologized profusely and then gathered up her son and hightailed it out of there.
I didn’t mean to make her uncomfortable. But such is life when we’re looking through the lens of assumptions.
Eight years ago, when my first baby was born and those eating disorders and body image issues still stood way too close, these experiences would have really bothered me, but today I know the truth of it. I know that something incredibly amazing happens to a woman’s body when she’s growing a human being. I know that in the days after, her stomach won’t just POOF! back into place.
You see, the uterus has fed and housed a new baby for nine whole months, and it can’t be rushed in its shrinking back to normal. Shrinking takes time. It’s not done in a day or a week or even three. For a time, we will still look just a little bit pregnant, with a bump that could go either way.
So when is it okay to assume that a woman is pregnant?
Never.
But if you really want to try, and you’re feeling brave, here are some (mostly) foolproof giveaways:
1. She doesn’t have a newborn baby with her.
2. She tells you she’s expecting.
3. She doesn’t say she just had a baby.
4. She announced a pregnancy on social media but she hasn’t yet announced a birth.
If you’ve checked all the above and answered no, there’s one really important one left:
5. Her stomach looks like it’s housing an oversized basketball, she’s almost doing a standing backbend and she’s waddling significantly. And I mean significantly, because yesterday was her due date.
That’s it. Any other time? Just keep your mouth shut.
Better safe than sorry.
This is an excerpt from Parenthood: Has Anyone Seen My Sanity?, the first in the Crash Test Parents humor series. For more humor essays, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page, where you’ll also get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides.
(Photo by Helen Montoya Henrichs.)
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog, Stuff Crash Test Kids say
Husband: Give me the fly swatter.
4-year-old: But I want to die a fly.
Husband: You want to die a fly?
Me: Well, that is quite an aspiration.
9-year-old: Mama, I have DNA samples of myself on my desk.
Me: Oh, really?
9-year-old: Yeah. A fingernail, a toenail and hair. I was hoping to go to a science place and clone myself so one of me could go to school and one could stay home.
Me:
9-year-old:
Me:
9-year-old: What?
5-year-old [bouncing on Husband’s back]: You’re…really…squishy.
Husband: The reason we don’t do that is because [blah blah blah]
9-year-old: You’re overwhelming me. You’re using too many words.
5-year-old: Daddy, I have to go pee.
Husband: So go pee.
5-year-old: My brother is already peeing. I guess I’ll have to pee on his face.
Husband: That is definitely not an option. Nope.
4-year-old: I forgot.
Me: You forgot what?
4-year-old: I FORGOT!
Husband: You forgot to talk?
4-year-old: YYYEEEEESSSSSS.
Me: I don’t think you’ve ever had a problem with that, actually.
6-year-old: Sometimes when I’m running, I trip over my leg.
Me: Well, that sounds like a problem.
6-year-old: Yeah. It is.
Husband: What do you want to be when you grow up?
4-year-old: I want to be a caveman when I grow up.
Me: That shouldn’t be too hard.
9-year-old: Daddy, while I was getting dressed, I was thinking about all the different ways you can kill a chicken.
Husband:
9-year-old:
Husband: That’s sounds…normal.
7-year-old: Hey, Mama. Guess what?
Me: I hate guessing games.
7-year-old: But guess what.
Me: What.
7-year-old: Nothing.
Me:
7-year-old: I made that up.
9-year-old: We’re starting a mine in our back yard. Asa’s digging, and we’re picking up strange rocks and old wood.
Me: Oh! I’m so excited!
9-year-old: You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you.
9-year-old: You’re the only parents in the whole world who make their kids do chores!
Husband:
Me:
9yo:
Husband & Me: hahahahahahahaha
Husband: Where is your brain?
4-year-old: In my tummy.
Me: Sounds about right.
Me: Did you know I won a poetry award today?
4-year-old: Because you burp really loud?
7-year-old: Daddy it’s raining!
Husband: I know. It’s crazy. My weather app says it’s zero percent chance of rain.
7-year-old: How does the weatherman keep his job when he’s wrong so much?
Husband: In the future, when we come to church, you need to not wear flip flops. And pants with no holes in them.
8-year-old: Yeah, and I should also probably wear underwear.
Husband:
8-year-old: Regrettably, I had a little bit of diarrhea in my underwear this morning.
Husband:
8-year-old:
Husband: Well, then.
9-year-old: So we’re not going to the pool?
Husband: No. We told you guys to clean up, and you didn’t.
9-year-old: I was going to come downstairs, but my brothers were chasing me with a banana.
7-year-old: Did you hear my toot? It made me go really fast.
Me: Too bad the smell didn’t go really fast with you.
7-year-old: [laughing hysterically]
Me: [passing out on the floor]
9-year-old: If you touch a fly and put your finger in your mouth, will you die?
Me: Why would you want to?
9-year-old: Maybe accidentally?
Husband: No. Think about it. You live in a house with twins. They’ve done much worse, and they’re still alive.
9-year-old: I’ll probably be really popular now that I’m the son of an author.
Me: Just make sure you wear deodorant.
9yo: Why?
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
I’m a working mom. I’m really good at what I do. I studied for four years in college and ended my time with a degree in journalism and English. I used to work as a managing editor for a newspaper, and I rocked that job every single day. Before that, I was a reporter. Now I’m an author.
I know exactly what I’m doing when faced with a blank screen. I know how to create stories from thin air, how to pull from my experiences and craft an essay that someone would actually want to read, how to position words on a page so that I can communicate what it is I’m trying to communicate. I’ve been doing this every single day for more than a decade.
I’ve also been a mother every single day for almost a decade. You’d think that after this long, almost ten years spent in the School of Parenting, I would have a slight idea of what I’m doing.
But I don’t.
When I open the door to my twins’ room, where they were supposed to be taking naps, and I see that they’ve just colored themselves green with a marker they smuggled in their room while their daddy’s back was turned, I don’t know what to do. When the 9-year-old’s mood flips at the drop of a LEGO mini figure and suddenly the whole entire world is ending, I don’t know what I’m doing. When the normally complacent and obedient child becomes a back-talking fool and I have to address all that sass, I have no idea what I’m doing.
I study parenting books, pouring over them for all the wisdom they have to offer me. I’ll read examples about children in the middle of rebellion, and I’ll think, “Yes, I can totally do this,” and then the 6-year-old will sneak out the door with a piece of gum I just told him he couldn’t have and surreptitiously stick it in his mouth while his back is turned to me, and all of that wisdom goes right out the door with him.
My children have the ability to turn me into a completely bumbling idiot with one disrespectful look or one ridiculous prank or one irreverent question or simply their state of being.
When they sneak out of their beds on a Saturday morning before the sun has even deemed it time to wake, just so they can get into the frosted mini wheats and make sure they get their fair share, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they eat half their brother’s deodorant in the bathroom while everyone else is sleeping, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they fill up the bath water to a flooding point, even though they’ve been told a billion times not to, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When a boy comes home and tells me about a bully on his school playground, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When the 4-year-olds take the canister of gasoline that sits behind a locked shed and pour it all over the yard, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they wake up in a horrible mood, even though they got plenty of sleep (because I’m psycho about their sleep), I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they refuse to love each other, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When the angry one threatens to run away because we’re the worst parents ever, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When one wakes in the middle of the night just to tell me he’s feeling sick and then, before the words are even completely out of his mouth, something else comes rocketing out of his mouth, too, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When one of them suffers from anxiety and depression, even though I’ve lived with these myself, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they take off their seatbelt in the car while we’re driving 70 miles per hour down a busy highway, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When I think of how impossible it is to give all of me to all of them, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they’re all talking to me at the same exact time, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they get in a slap-fight, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When I tell them they can’t fly from the top of their daddy’s shed to the trampoline and they try it anyway, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When the 4-year-old cuts a huge hole in his brand new shirt, because someone left the scissors out, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When I worry that I don’t know how to help the one who flies off the handle, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When I worry about them, period, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they mouth off one minute and then the next minute they act like I’m their best friend, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When I think about the next stage I’m coming into as a mother—the Puberty one—I don’t know what I’m doing.
That’s okay. Here’s a secret most parents won’t ever willingly tell you: We’ll never completely know what we’re doing. Our children are grand experiments—some days we get it right, some days we don’t.
Before my twins were released from their 20-day stay in the neonatal intensive care unit at our local hospital, Husband and I had to take an infant CPR class in order to take them home. We learned all sorts of things we’d done wrong with our three older boys. At the end of the class, we looked at each other and sort of laugh-cried and said, “It’s a miracle they all survived.”
It’s a miracle any kid survives, because we’re all pretty much clueless.
[Tweet “We can spend a lifetime parenting and never feel competent at it. We’re a community of scientists.”]
We can spend a lifetime in this job and never feel quite competent at it. We can read books and take classes and listen to what other parents do and try it with our own, but the truth is, we’re all basically on the same playing field—that is, amateurs. What works today probably won’t work tomorrow. So just when we think we have it figured out, our kids will promptly show us that we don’t actually have anything at all figured out.
Parenting is hard. We’re dealing with irrational humans on an everyday, every-hour basis. We’re never going to know everything. We’ll never anticipate everything they’ll do. We’ll never be able to predict who our children will be when they wake up tomorrow. They are daily growing and changing and coming into their own bodies and minds, and that means that the best we can do is sit back and let it happen and try to roll with the uppercuts, devising our next grand experiment for what might possibly work to turn them into a rational, kind, courageous, creative, joyful, gracious, enjoyable adult.
No parent really knows what he’s (or she’s) doing. That means we, the clueless, are all in good company.
[Tweet “No parent really knows what he’s (or she’s) doing. We, the clueless, are all in good company.”]
Now, please excuse me, because my kid just told me I owe him a million dollars for making him sit down and do his homework and for being the worst parent ever, so I have an experiment that’s calling my name.
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents, General Blog
Sometimes I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job as a parent. Relationships are good, all those consequences we’ve put into our Family Playbook—a list of infractions and their expected consequences—are well understood, the house is in almost perfect order.
And then my children wake up.
It only takes seconds to realize that they are completely different people today. Not only have they forgotten all the new infractions and consequences we brainstormed yesterday, but they also no longer care about getting to school on time or wearing clean clothes or keeping their room even the slightest bit tidy.
Yesterday my two older boys came down for breakfast fifty minutes before we had to leave for school. Today they were still not eating breakfast 10 minutes before we had to walk out the door, and I had to shout my last you’re-not-going-to-get-breakfast warning above the volume of an audio book, because I’m too lazy to walk up the stairs for the sixteenth time (I blame my laziness on my broken foot. And Post Traumatic Stress, which I feel every time I approach stairs).
Yesterday they liked the grilled broccoli and cauliflower and carrots we brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt and roasted in the oven. Today they gagged just looking at them.
Yesterday they all sat perfectly still in their separate spaces while their daddy read two picture books and I read a Narnia chapter book and again while we engaged in our ten minutes of Sustained Silent Reading time and then again while we did our meditation breathing and prayer time. We didn’t have to remind them once to get back in their spots or stop talking or that, no, an art journal is not a book you read and, no, the pen in your hand is not necessary during reading time (unless you’re taking notes—which he was clearly not).
Today they think reading time means chase-your-brother-around-the-library time.
It’s enough to drive a parent insane.
I’ve often joked that parenting is like living in an insane asylum. But the joke is usually true. Insanity is defined by Albert Einstein as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
THIS IS WHAT KIDS DO, EVERY SINGLE DAY.
They try to write during story time, even though we’ve told them a billion times it’s not allowed. They try to sneak that LEGO toy into the bath tub, thinking this time will surely be different and we won’t object. They seem surprised that 8 p.m. is lights out, even though nothing has changed in their thousands of nights.
The problem is, our kids are the least consistent people on the planet. Every single day they wake up completely different people. The bigger problem, though, is that they give us that one little taste of expectation realization, and we think they CAN sit still for two stories and a chapter book.
And we keep expecting it every other day.
For as long as we’ve had twins, I have fantasized about two boys napping in the same bedroom for more than an hour and a half. We were spoiled, because our older boys took three-hour naps and could be trusted to sleep in their rooms with their doors closed.
The first time we left the twins for three hours with the door closed, they pulled down the forty-four shirts in their closet, painted the walls with poop and ate the cardboard pages of Goodnight Moon.
So the next time I set a timer for two hours (because surely they’d just woken up early) and I sat outside their door to work on some deadline material. I could hear them shrieking, but we’d baby proofed everything, and there were only two mattresses on their floor (not even beds, because the twins could destroy furniture in 3.4 seconds). Nothing they could get into. Nothing that would hurt them. Nothing to occupy them for two hours. They’d fall asleep eventually.
They got really quiet, but I didn’t worry. We’re all quiet when we’re sleeping.
When the timer went off, I opened their door and found them sitting on clouds, all the stuffing ripped out of the lone Beanie Boo someone had left in their room.
The next day, I opened their door. I sat right outside. I corrected them when they so much as moved.
AND THEY FELL ASLEEP. FOR TWO WHOLE HOURS.
Oh, thank God, I said. It is possible.
So, of course, the next day, I did the exact same thing. Except as soon as they were asleep, I went to my room to do some more involved work and make a few business phone calls. Two hours later, they had knocked their closet doors off the hinges, strung all their ties from the ceiling fan and neatly lined up all their shoes under their mattresses.
Oh my word.
It’s maddening and confusing and impossible to keep up with these every-day-different children.
It’s impossible to know that today the 8-year-old only got seven hours of sleep but will wake up the happiest kid in the world, but tomorrow he’ll get 12 hours of sleep and will wake up gnawing on all the heads he bit off before breakfast. It’s impossible to know that today the 6-year-old will follow all the rules and help with everything around the house, and tomorrow he will wake up a defiant little monster.
It’s impossible to know that today the 4-year-old will love reading those books to me but tomorrow he will wake up acting like he’d rather eat boiled, unsalted spinach than finish the last five sentences of that Little Bear story.
What’s a parent to do?
Well, we just keep doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results from this insane asylum. Because, you know. Consistency and all.
Also because sometimes it does work, and those times it works might just be enough to power us through the times it doesn’t. And if they’re not, well. At least there’s red wine. And chocolate.
And a lock on our bedroom door they haven’t yet learned to pick (I’m sure it’s coming).
This is an excerpt from Parenting Is the Hardest Insane Asylum Ever, a humor book that does not yet have a release date. To read more of my humor essays, visit Crash Test Parents.
